The Hour Before Midnight
by Katerina1
Summary: I wanted you to lose your pride for me. JS


**Title:** The Hour Before Midnight

**Author: **Katerina

**Rating: **PG-13

**Pairing: **J/S.

**Summary: **I wanted you to lose your pride for me.

**Disclaimer: **I've tried to convince Jack he belongs to me, but I don't think it's working...

**Author's Note:** This story was inspired by two things. Firstly, the poem below, _Valentine_ by Carol Ann Duffy, has always been a favorite of mine, and I recently realised how much it summed up my feelings about J/S. Secondly, The Plant offered a challenge on the YTDAW boards, which gave me a setting and a form for my idea.

Oh, and I haven't seen any of season 3 yet. Hell, I haven't even seen half of season 2, thanks to the very rude Channel Nine in Australia, which loves its repeats. Therefore, any characterisation which is off is my fault. Sorry. :-)

XXXXX

**Valentine.**

Not a red rose or a satin heart.I give you an onion.It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.It promises lightlike the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tearslike a lover.It will make your reflectiona wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,possessive and faithfulas we are,for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,if you like.Lethal.Its scent will cling to your fingers,cling to your knife.

-- Carol Ann Duffy

XXXXX

**10:34 pm**

Several dozen tiny flakes made their way past the window as Samantha Spade watched.

She was dimly aware of the usual bustle of the office going on behind her, fading more and more into the background as she watched the snow. Her breath made slight puffs on the windowpane, broken into neat sections by horizontal blinds, and she turned her attention away from the last of the flurry to notice that the slats really did need dusting.

Someone cleared his throat near her left ear, and she jumped.

"Sorry." She recognised Martin's rueful chuckle even as she turned. "Didn't mean to scare you."

She shook her head, smiling outwardly as she collected her thoughts.

"It's okay."

She waited a beat, and when he didn't appear to have a reason for disturbing her, she raised an eyebrow. This elicited a startled blink and a slight blush, followed by a mumbled sentence and swift departure.

Samantha bit the inside of her cheek in annoyance, and looked across the room, into a pair of dark, very amused eyes.

Well, now she had two choices. Ignore it, or storm across the room, grab Jack by his collar, and demand to know what was just so damn funny.

Lifting her head slightly, Samantha took the high road. Later, she'd probably come to regret it.

XXXXX

**10:57 pm**

'Later' turned out to be in twenty-four minutes. Samantha stuck her head around the door to Jack's office, catching him just as he finished a call on his cell.

She didn't bother with a greeting, but simply launched into the latest information she had on their new case: a missing eight-year-old boy.

"One convicted pedophile in the area, but he's in custody on an unrelated offence. The timeline doesn't fit."

Jack gave her one of his looks, but only said, "That was fast."

She shrugged. "I called in a favor from a guy I know in PD."

This time, his eyebrows rose. And then he said, with deliberate dryness, "Of course you do."

And later arrived.

XXXXX

**10:58 pm**

For a minute, he was almost scared as she stepped carefully into his office. She didn't ask him to repeat his statement, or to clarify his meaning; instead, she simply looked at him, with such fury in her eyes he half expected her to go for her gun.

The moment spun out between them, growing more powerful, taking on the consistency of honey.

Then, quietly, her words whispered across the space between them.

"Fuck you, Jack. Just... Fuck you."

He watched, trapped between shock and anger, waiting for her next move. She pivoted on her heel, bursting out of the office and kicking the door shut behind her, but not before he saw the sudden flash of tears on her cheeks.

So he did what he always did: he chased.

XXXXX

**11:00 pm**

Because he knew that Samantha Spade would rather die than be seen crying, he found her on the first try.

He slammed the door to the Ladies' room shut behind him, angry with himself and with her and with the fact that they were reduced to this.

She started, looking up from where she was leaning over the basins. Catching his reflection in the mirror, she gaped.

"Jack? What the hell?"

He was perversely pleased to hear that surprise had replaced the venom in her voice.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" he snapped, and watched her eyes narrow.

"I thought I made myself perfectly clear." There was ice in her tone, snow like the flakes outside the window. "I didn't think there'd be much room for misunderstanding."

They watched each other warily, waiting for the next barbed arrow to fly. But it didn't come, and after a moment Jack sighed, defeated.

"Fine," he said, voice low, heart squeezing itself to death in his chest. "Fine."

Sam watched, silent, as he turned to leave. He pulled at the door, and then twice more when it failed to open. Without a sound, he leaned forward to rest his head against it.

"Here," she snapped, striding over, and he moved aside. Impatiently, she gave the handle the special twist-and-pull it had taken her over a week to master, and completely failed to open the door. She tried again, with the same result, and finally heaved an irritated sigh.

"The lock's always sticking," she explained, without quite looking at him. "Usually it works if you just-" She twist-and-pulled again. "But I think it finally gave up when you slammed the door." Now she met his eyes, well and truly irritated. "Call Security so we can get out of here."

He stared at her blankly, and she finally snapped. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'd like to get home before midnight."

He shook his head. "No, I don't have my cell." She raised an eyebrow. "I left it in my office when... you know."

She had the grace to look away. "Great. Mine's charging on my desk."

His eyes slipped slowly closed, and he conceded defeat. "Fine. So we wait until Security does their next round, and we bang on the door till they get us out."

"But that could be hours!"

His patience snapped. "You got a better idea?"

Silence was his only answer. Turning away, he selected a patch of floor and, leaning against the wall, settled in for the wait.

"Jack!"

"What?"

"You can't just sit. This is a bathroom, for God's sake-"

"Sam. I know for a fact that the cleaners came through not half an hour ago, because I saw them in the hallway. Besides, I'd rather brave whatever's on this floor than spend the night on my feet."

He rested his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he heard an annoyed huff, and then an ostentatious rustle as, he assumed, she pulled off her suit jacket and arranged it on the floor by the opposite wall. There was a slight thump as she sat, the heels on her boots clicking against the floor, and then silence.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Jack fought off a smile.

XXXX

**11:11 pm**

"Jack?"

"Hmm?"

A pause.

"Nothing."

XXXXX

**11:13 pm**

"Jack?"

"What?"

"... Never mind."

XXXXX

**11:15 pm**

"Jack?"

He opened his eyes and glared at her. "Sam. What is it?"

She picked at a loose thread on the lining of her jacket. "I'm sorry about... before. I didn't mean it."

He looked her over carefully, but she refused to meet his eyes. "It's okay," he said, finally. She nodded.

XXXXX

**11:19 pm**

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for... well, whatever I did that set you off. Okay?"

"Okay."

She looked up, and he was relieved to see she didn't look angry, just thoughtful.

"You want to know what you did?" She didn't wait for an answer, but went on, directing her reply to somewhere in the middle distance. "You do it all the time, now. You know, since you got back. You... I don't know." She took a breath. "Every time Martin talks to me, or I mention I'm meeting someone for coffee, or before, when I told you I knew I guy in PD, you make some joke about it." She was speaking earnestly now, leaning forward to meet his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... you smile, like you think it's all so funny. Or you mutter how you're 'not surprised'." She mimicked his voice, looking away. "Is that what you think of me, Jack? That I've got this train of admirers stretching over half the city, and what else could anyone expect?"

"No," he said quietly. "No, that's not what I think."

"Oh," she said.

XXXXX

**11:25 pm**

"Why?" she asked.

"What?" He blinked, wondering if he'd missed the qualifier for that.

"Why do you do it, then? Why do you pretend it's funny?"

Now it was his turn to pick at a loose thread, this time in his cuff. "What else am I supposed to do, Sam?"

Silence strung out between them once more.

XXXXX

**11:33 pm**

"Is there?"

The question burst from him, as though he'd been waiting months to ask it and couldn't face another second without an answer.

She started out of her daydream. "Is there what?"

"A string of admirers. That guy in PD. Martin."

She smiled slightly, a half-hearted pull at her lips that turned bitter around the edges. "No. How could there be, Jack?"

He looked at her for the first time in what felt like years, noting the earnest blue-green eyes, slightly shadowed from the late night, and the single blonde curl that kept falling across her face. The harsh fluorescent lights above her cast an odd mix of light and dark across her body.

"There should be someone, Sam."

"There is _someone_."

He shifted against the cold tiles, drawing his arms over his chest. "Sam, I can't-"

"I know, Jack." She pulled her legs up, resting her clasped hands on her bent knees. "But I can't, either. Believe me, I wish I could. But it's not something I can turn off. I can't run off into the sunset, or even go out on a date, because you're always there. You always will be."

XXXXX

**11:44 pm**

"I thought you didn't care anymore."

She lifted her head from where it rested on her bent knees, ready to disagree, but he went on before she could speak.

"I came back from Chicago, and you were just the same. I thought you didn't care. That's why I tried to make you think that... I didn't, either. I tried to convince myself, every time I thought you were talking about someone else."

She let him sit silently for a moment, not looking at her.

"Why did you think I didn't care, Jack?"

He shrugged. "I wanted you..." He paused, and offered her a rueful smile. "You're going to hate me for this." She made a 'go on' gesture, so he did. "I wanted to come back and see that you'd been lost without me. I wanted you to look miserable, depressed, like you hadn't slept, I don't know." He gave a half-laugh. "Pathetic, huh?"

She lifted a shoulder. "I have my pride, Jack."

"I know," he said. "But I wanted you to lose your pride for me."

"Maybe I did," she replied, so quiet it was almost a whisper.

XXXXX

**11:58 pm**

_So here we are,_ he thought,_ stuck between the past and the future. Can't go back. Can't move forward. Can't do anything except be miserable..._

"Maybe that's what love is," came the soft reply, and he realized he'd spoken the last thought out loud.

"What?"

Sam tipped her head back against the wall, watching a lone moth swerve circles around the light.

"Maybe that's what we have." She sounded a little drunk. _Exhaustion_, his mind supplied. They'd been working the last twenty-four hours almost straight.

"You know," she went on, "what's between us. It's not pretty and delicate. It's sharper, hardier. It's had to fight against more. It pulls us together, but it kills us when we're apart."

She straightened her head to look at him. "I don't think I want to fight anymore."

He let out a long breath. In her half-asleep, rambling way, she was right. He opened his arms, and she blinked in confusion.

"Come on," he whispered, and watched as she slowly crossed the bathroom floor to face him. A slight gesture with his head, and she carefully settled herself against his chest. He tugged her closer as her eyes drifted shut, and rested his chin on her head.

The woman he held in his arms was a blessing and a curse, all at once. Apart, she would kill him. Together, she would make him live. And he was tired of fighting.

On the wall, the clock ticked away the last of the hour before midnight.

fin


End file.
